by Jory Strong
He kissed her until she softened against him, then he kissed her some more, driving the message home.
She belonged to them and there were some things that were non-negotiable, like her putting herself in danger. He released her and she said, “That doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes everything,” Mace said, his voice harsh. “You want to give yourself over to our care. You want us to take charge. This is us taking charge.”
“No! That part of my life has nothing to do with my working at Crime Tells!”
Mace turned her to face him. “The hell it doesn’t when it puts you in danger.”
“And you don’t think I can handle it! I get that. But you are wrong!”
“You don’t have to handle it. You don’t need to prove anything by working at Crime Tells.”
Grace’s body went rigid, her fists clenched at her sides. “That’s what you think this is all about, me proving myself?”
Her voice sounded like it was made of raw grit. It scraped over Cade’s heart and made it bleed.
She tried to extricate herself from the cave they’d formed with their bodies, determination pouring off her, a willingness to escalate that brought back flashes of the times his mother had been drunk enough to bring about a physical fight with their old man rather than attempt to evade it.
He stepped away from her. Mace did the same, a look in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, as if he’d also been dragged back into their childhoods.
Grace put more space between them.
They turned to face her. If they could just get into the house, get naked—
“We worry about you,” Cade said, going for a reasonable tone so they could get this behind closed doors and prove to her that there was no separating the parts of her life. “Even with two of us, we can’t be with you 24/7, not every single day.”
“Did I ask for that? And it goes both ways. I can’t be with you 24/7 either, especially considering there are two of you.”
Cade crowded closer. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Her chin lifted. “You worry about me, so I should give up my job. I guess that means you’re willing to give up the bars so I don’t have to worry about the steady stream of available women coming on to you, waiting for that moment when your guard drops.”
“You think we’ll cheat on you,” Cade said, voice low and harsh, his head throbbing. His chest tightened to the point he could barely breathe, to the place where his heart was pounding so hard and fast it felt like it was going to explode.
Intending to haul her against him, and eradicate that worry, his arm shot out—
Mace forcefully blocked him as if suddenly believing he’d turned into their old man and meant to hurt Grace.
Fury blazed through him. Hurt. He turned, shoving Mace backward.
Mace’s expression locked down. “I’m done with this,” he said, wheeling, storming toward the Roadster.
Cade felt like a tank had slammed into him, pulling him under and crushing him as it rolled on.
Mace couldn’t fucking mean what that sounded like.
Cade looked at Grace, saw the tears filling her eyes.
He wheeled, going after his brother.
“Mace!”
Mace got into the Roadster. It roared to life.
Steps away from it and their eyes met, and the look in Mace’s made his heart seize.
I’m done with this.
Mace might be telling himself that, but he was hurting. Big time.
His brother hit the gas pedal and the Roadster sped forward.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Cade turned, saw Grace go into the house.
Fuck!
He jogged to the door.
She’d locked it behind her but he was betting money she was just on the other side of it.
“I warned you about putting a locked door between you and me, Grace. When I get inside, and I will get inside, you’re going to get another spanking.”
“Sex isn’t going to solve this.”
“We’ll find out if that’s true or not.” But even saying it, he knew she was right. What he wanted with her went way beyond sex.
“I’m not letting you in.”
Her voice sounded dead serious, increasing the ache in every part of his body. He still had the key to her place, but he wanted her to unlock the door, not keep him shut out of her house, her heart, her life.
She couldn’t really be worried that he’d cheat on her, could she? Though Mace’s taking off like that hadn’t helped. It’d only—
No, that was their old man’s game. Blame the other guy, then follow it up with his fists.
He rubbed his chest. How had this gotten so screwed up?
He needed to be with her. He needed to go after Mace.
He touched his forehead to the wood. “I love you, Grace.”
He’d wanted to make the occasion special. She deserved that. He’d wanted to see her face when he told her, to pull her into his arms if she wasn’t already there.
Silence was all he got. No Grace saying she loved him back. No sound of the lock being disengaged.
“Did you hear me? I said I love you.”
“Prove it. Leave, and that doesn’t mean sitting outside my house or parking your car down the street to watch over me, or suddenly deciding you’ve got a burning need to spend hours visiting Tyler.”
He should have known she’d raise the stakes instead of folding. She was a Montgomery.
“What about opening the door so I can give you a kiss goodbye?”
“No, Cade.”
The tears in her voice were killing him. Mace’s I’m done with this was killing him. He didn’t want to leave her, not that he thought she was in imminent danger, but, the promise she’d made to Avery was like an IED waiting to go off and take Grace away from them.
Them. Because he refused to believe Mace could really walk away from Grace.
“He didn’t mean it the way it sounded,” he said.
“You don’t know that, Cade. You can’t.”
His throat and chest burned because yeah, he couldn’t. Not really. Not without connecting with Mace and helping his brother get the shit shoveled out of his head.
“I’ll leave. But I’ll be back,” Cade said, strangling the urge to ask Grace for a promise not to go anywhere.
Grace turned, putting her back against the door and sliding downward to the floor.
I love you echoed through her heart and head. Cade’s spoken words, her unspoken feelings.
But was love going to be enough?
Ache pulsed through her chest in waves.
I’m done with this.
Her throat burned. This time she let the tears come.
She closed her eyes. Tilted her head back.
A thump signaled that Perry had jumped from his chair. It brought a watery smile.
The click of his nails grew louder. He climbed onto her lap.
She opened her eyes and looked down at him. He was focused on her face, dark brown eyes filled with love and devotion.
Some of the ache disappeared.
“I know,” she told him. “Regardless of what happens with them, I’ve got you.”
She stroked from the top of his head to the base of his slowly wagging tail.
“You’re a lot less complicated to have a relationship with, that’s for sure.”
Perry’s tail sped, flicking back and forth, encouraging her to keep talking—as long as it was accompanied with continued strokes.
She gave him another one.
“They’re wrong in saying I’m trying to prove myself.”
Perry’s expression said, Absolutely! They should know you better than that!
She laughed at herself, caressed his soft floppy ears.
Working for Bulldog had been a natural evolution. She loved spending time with her family. She loved studying and figuring out people. She loved tackling unique cases. And she loved the fact that her actions
were what would lead to a satisfying conclusion.
It wasn’t like clinical psychology, where the end result relied on a client dealing with old baggage and trying to change old patterns—like David’s cheating on her, like Cade and Mace enjoying a variety of women.
She hadn’t even meant to bring up the women! She’d been mad, hurt, her pride smarting at the way they’d behaved in front of and toward Avery.
“But I did bring it up.”
It was time for her to deal with the David-cheating baggage.
Looking back, with him well out of her life and after having experienced Mace and Cade, she realized just how big a blow David’s cheating had been to her confidence, just why his betrayal had been so devastating. She might have committed her heart to someone other than Cade and Mace when she loved David, but the lesson she’d actually internalized at catching him in bed with Bethany was that she’d never be able to hold Mace and Cade’s interest. How could she even hope to, when she hadn’t been enough for David who wasn’t a player?
A spasm went through her heart. She knew she had to share the blame for what’d just happened.
She’d known they needed to talk. She’d put it off.
Their dominance, their possessiveness, their protectiveness were part of what made them the men she wanted permanently in her life. The craving to belong to them, to give herself over to them, was so natural it was as if they’d been made for her.
Lyric hadn’t been wrong when she said maybe they hadn’t been ready before now and that the power of testosterone should not be downplayed.
You want to give yourself over to our care. You want us to take charge. This is us taking charge.
She should have anticipated they’d stretch their control as far beyond the bedroom door as she would allow. My bad, as Lyric had taken to saying.
“My bad,” she told Perry. “What am I going to do about it?”
She rubbed behind Perry’s ears. Ache radiated through her chest over the hurt she’d seen in their eyes at basically telling them she couldn’t trust them. Somehow causing them pain was a hundred times worse than their not believing she could keep herself safe on the job.
A touch of outrage returned. They’d seen her at the gun range! They knew she could shoot!
But they’d also seen fellow Marines die. They’d had to kill.
Witnessing her shooting at a paper target or a harmless clay skeet was not visible proof she could defend herself against an armed assailant, or even an unarmed one. Not when they knew all too well how quickly violence could erupt.
In a thousand fantasies, Cade had told her he loved her. And when it’d actually happened, rather than letting him in so they could talk, rather than saying those words back to him, she’d told him to leave.
She huffed out a sigh. Smart, Grace. Real smart.
Except one of them needed to go after Mace—
No. They both needed to go after Mace. And it was time to confront the images she had in her head, of them being surrounded by beautiful, available women.
She’d avoided actually seeing it, putting real faces to the temptation. Time to deal with that baggage too.
Shifting Perry from her lap into her arms, she got to her feet, carrying him to his chair. She rubbed her cheek against the top of his head then put him down.
She considered a change of clothes, even got as far as opening the closet. Rejected the things she’d wear if she were going out for a night on the town, where the intention was to attract masculine attention, at least enough of it to snag a dance partner.
This trip to the bar had to be about accepting her as is—and looking the way she had the last time they’d seen her felt important.
A kiss to Perry’s head and she left. Trying not to worry about whether or not she’d even be able to find Mace and Cade tonight.
Chapter Twelve
Mace lifted his glass and took a swallow of whiskey. Same table. Same chair. Same drink he’d had in his hand before Braden showed up and dropped his little bomb last night. Same crowd, or mostly the same, same mood, at least in the bar—only he wasn’t the same.
Fuck he hurt. And the trouble was, even if he could go back, he wouldn’t have been able to resist Grace.
Making love to her—and it was making love—didn’t have anything to do with Cade’s dare.
How could she think they’d cheat on her?
He rubbed his hand over his heart. Set the glass on the table. Spun it.
Whiskey sloshed onto his hand.
What a fucking mess. He’d wanted her, loved her, avoided her, because he’d known it’d end like this.
The anger, the argument, Cade—
Mace lifted the glass at seeing Cade heading his way, wearing pissed-off like it was a Kevlar vest.
Cade took his usual chair. “What the fuck is going on with you?”
“I’m doing what needs to be done.”
A muscle jerked in Cade’s cheek. He could practically hear the grind of Cade’s teeth.
“The fuck you are. What part of hurting her that way needed to be done? You made her believe you’d committed, then the first sign of trouble, you bailed.”
“You were there. You know what happened. For a split second it all came back, the way it used to be in our house. I reacted, you—” Mace slammed the glass onto the table. “I bailed to avoid this, us fighting over her, us fighting because of her. Us coming to hate each other. Because one of us should be able to have Grace. I’m out.”
It felt like his heart had been ripped open a little wider while the bleeding-out remained painfully slow. He lifted the glass and took a swallow, the smooth burn of the whiskey coating the harsh in his throat.
“That’s it? That’s your whole fucking explanation?”
“That’s it. That’s my whole fucking explanation.”
Cade’s nostrils flared. He took a deep breath. “Yeah, for a split second I was back in that place too, but you didn’t fucking give me a chance to get out of it before you bailed.”
“We’ve had each other’s backs since we were kids. I’m doing what needs to be done.”
“Is that so? Because what I hear you saying is that you can’t handle sharing her. That it’s going to be easy for you to see her with me and know it could have been you except when the relationship came under fire you ran.”
Mace lurched forward. “You don’t get it. You never saw the times Mom tried to pit us against each other. You never saw how she’d set our old man off then lob him at us like an RPG.”
“Grace is not Mom.” Cade’s voice was a low, furious growl.
“Grace actually has the power to make us hate each other.”
“And you think she’ll use it?”
Cade shook his head. The anger drained out of his expression. For a split second the aching loss Mace felt was in his brother’s eyes, then Cade’s eyes went hard.
“You’ve got to make your own call when it comes to Grace,” Cade said. “But I can’t guarantee I can let you back in if you walk away now. That’s not a threat. That’s me telling it like it is. I’ll always have your back, but she’s the center of my world.”
He expected Cade to leave. Instead his brother signaled a waitress for a whiskey.
Waiting me out?
It didn’t feel like that. In fact, as the minutes passed, it seemed like any other night, except for the restlessness, the realization he’d rather be with Grace. Hell, they’d both rather be with her.
He balled his free hand into a fist rather than attempt to rub the ache out of his heart. There’d been that moment, when the three of them were in bed together, where he’d believed it was going to be okay, when he’d been happier, more content than he’d ever been.
And then the business with Avery had come up, leading to the fight, because losing Grace wasn’t something either of them could stand. Only he had lost her, by choice, by walking away, by letting the shit from their childhood and the crap he’d fed himself to keep away from Grace in the first p
lace screw his head over.
Could he really let her go and not regret it for the rest of his life?
“How’d you leave things with her?”
“I told her I loved her—through a fucking locked door.”
“You still had the key to her place.”
“When she said that bit about separating the parts of her life, only giving up the control sometimes, I thought bullshit. I thought, get this inside and we’d prove to her that there is no separating out us taking charge in the bedroom from us taking charge 24/7. Only having that door between us, knowing we’d hurt her—using the key, using sex…”
Cade rubbed his chest the way Mace was still fighting against doing.
“So you came looking for me?”
“Yeah.”
A group of women approached, hip and shoulder bumping each other, not completely steady on their fuck-me heels. He’d been with three of the five, Cade had covered the ones he hadn’t.
Mace’s heart did a hard tap-tap, calling his attention to the blonde at the far right. She was the only one he and Cade had been with at the same time. And fuck, he’d never seen it before—or let himself see it—she had Grace’s build, Grace’s blue eyes, Grace’s long hair.
His dick didn’t even twitch. Even when those glistening pink lips pouted, probably to remind him of what they’d felt like wrapped around his cock.
Not even tempted, Grace. You should be here to see it.
Sensing his total lack of interest, the blonde altered her course, the move forcing the others to Cade’s side. Only that was as bad as having them focused on him because suddenly he was seeing it through Grace’s eyes, hearing her compare worrying about them at work to their worry about her out on the job.
It wasn’t the same fucking thing, but—
The jab in his chest was damned uncomfortable. Maybe they should offer to sell the bars if Grace would quit Crime Tells.
The thought of walking away from what they’d accomplished made him feel like he’d been hit by shrapnel. This’d been their dream since their second year in the Marines.
Back then they’d thought they’d set up near a base, be a place for servicemen to hang out, but then they’d come to Northern California for a poker tournament, ended up meeting the Maguires and Montgomerys—